


love heroes

by godlet



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: 'danny no' 'DANNY YES', Ghost Shenanigans, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Other, Polyamory, Romance, Teen Romance, Trans Character, danny is trans, valerie is a demigirl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 03:22:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6453382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godlet/pseuds/godlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phantom is spotted with Sam Manson too many times to be a mere coincidence. Amity Park speculates.</p><p>Phantom is seen smooching Tucker Foley after a ghost fight. Amity Park loses its shit.</p><p>Phantom brazenly makes out with his sworn enemy (?), the Red Hunter(ess), mid-battle. Amity Park resigns to its fate of being at the whims of a hormonal teenage ghost hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	love heroes

**Author's Note:**

> For Dannyversary 2016. Happy 12 years since Danny Phantom first aired.

 

Within the past week of this spring, Amity Park’s most well-known ghost hero Phantom has been seen with the same human girl no less than five times.

 

This, predictably, causes a stir within the community.  Who was this elusive girl and her equally slippery ghost boyfriend? Were they truly in a romantic relationship as widely suspected, or was this a paranormal ruse?

 

When word got around that it was the town’s richest Goth, Sam Manson, the singular news station of course jumped right on her trail.

 

“Excuse me, Samantha Manson? Lance Thunder here from Amity Park News; could I have a quick word with you?”

 

“What?” Sam bites back crossly, hurrying down the street at almost a gallop. Their clothing that day was particularly masculine, but it did not stop the near infallible Lance Thunder from pursing them.

 

“Is it true that you’re dating Amity Park’s number one ghost hero, Phantom? What do you have to say about the allegations claiming you’re being ‘seduced’ or ‘possessed’ by Phantom?”

 

Sam bats away the offending microphone unceremoniously shoved into her face, a disgusted sneer bred from the likes of generations of old money already morphing her normally neutral expression into something harrowing.

 

“Fuck off,” they reply crassly, speed walking to the next alley over. “None of your business.” For good measure, they throw a prompt middle finger just as they disappear behind the red brick wall.

 

“Ah…” Lance Thunder pauses to stare after her with a simultaneously disappointed and nervous face.

 

The person holding the camera has to shove him in the shoulder several times before he makes a move to follow. “Wait, miss Manson, hold – _Oh!”_

 

At the entrance of the alley the crew stands, gawking, as Sam Manson and Phantom fly off into the air, the human cradled in the small ghost’s arms like she didn’t weigh fifty pounds more than what his body suggests.

 

“Toodles!” Phantom yells as the two become invisible the higher they float, a cheeky expression on his glowing white face.

 

“Oh…” Lance Thunder makes a withering noise, turning back to the camera with haunted eyes. “This was… Lance Thunder… Back to you, Carol…”

 

...

* * *

 ...

 

Vladimir Masters leans back in his plush chair at the head of the Mayor’s office in Amity Park, his perpetually oily stare set upon the flat screen worth-more-than-a-small-country T.V with no small amount of hoity-toity distaste.

 

“That boy…” Vlad pinches the bridge of his nose with a put-upon sigh, playing up the theatrics despite being alone.  He could never be off of his toes around this wholesale mayhem generator of a town.

 

“Especially with Daniel running amok,” Vlad finishes out loud, allowing his prized Persian cat Maddie to jump into his lap with a rumbling purr.  He absently strokes her soft fur as he settles back into his seat, sighing once more. “At least he can’t do much worse than… _this._ He cannot possibly be that ill-advised and prone to teenage flippancy.”

 

Vlad shakes off the unrepentant feeling that the worse had yet to come, pulling up some tedious documents that require his attention on his computer.

 

Maddie gracefully sticks her entire face into her owner’s coffee cup to lick at the remaining beverage and get her disgusting cat spit everywhere.

 

...

* * *

 ...

 

Another table is flung haphazardly into the wall, shattering into pulchritudinous pieces that rain down upon the seemingly unconcerned Amity Park mall-goers. Instead, they all clump together behind various stable objects, eyes only occasionally flitting back to the ghost fight currently interrupting their previously peaceful day.

 

“Did you hear about Phantom having a human girlfriend?”

 

“Yea; it was Sam Manson, wasn’t it?”

 

Phantom shouts as he flings a ghost vulture into the nearby fountain, destroying parts of the mechanisms and spraying filtered water everywhere.  Among that is thousands of tiny pennies and dimes.

 

“That’s gonna come out of your paycheck!” Phantom yells, shaking an angry fist, before ‘diving’ into the fray to take on one of three birds.

 

“Ugh, I go to school with her.  Why did _she_ get picked by Phantom?”

 

“Why are you complaining?”

 

 _“I_ wanted to date Phantom!”

 

 _“Everyone_ wants to date Phantom, Theo; get in line!”

 

“Hmph…”

 

Ectoplasmic rays fire overhead the calm cowering crowd as Phantom brings the fight down to an end, sucking two of three buzzards into the iconic Fenton Thermos before cackling triumphantly and chasing after the third.

 

“Yo!” Tucker Foley jumps up from his hidden position behind a hotdog stand, jogging out to greet the lone Phantom floating amongst the wreckage like a particularly satisfied ‘mayhem generator.’

 

“Hey,” Phantom replies a bit breathlessly, which is the norm for Amity Park. Their ghostly hero showed more human tendencies than any other ghost. No one questioned it. “Where’s Sam?”

 

“Ooh, your ‘girlfriend’?” Tucker sniffs a bit cattily, pulling out his PDA and pretending to examine it with all of his attention. “Dunno. She said she couldn’t come today. Bummer.”

 

Phantom smirks, setting off several flashes of phone cameras (which he ignores – he has a ‘devil may care’ persona to upkeep after all), seeing straight through the other teen’s pitiful defense system.

 

“Aw, I don’t mind,” Phantom floats until he’s eye-to-eye with Tucker, a strange look in his toxic green eyes.  He pretends to be lounging in the air, head propped up on his hands as his white booted feet kick about in practiced patterns. “Besides, it just means that I get you all to myself.”

 

“Wha - ?” Tucker gets out before his lips are being captured by the ghost-boy, causing a round of startled gasps, applause, and more camera shutters to go off in the crowd.

 

“Holy shit!”

 

“Get ‘em, Foley!”

 

“Foley, what the fuck dude!?”

 

_“Hell yea hell yea hell yea hell - !”_

 

“But, Manson…?”

 

_“POLYAMORY FOR THE WIN!”_

 

Just as Tucker appears to be melting into the kiss, Phantom chuckles and pulls back, snatching the red beret straight off of his head and flying into the air, disappearing within only a few seconds.

 

Tucker stands, stunned and with proverbial stars in his eyes, for a few moments before stomping his foot once and shouting “You took my _damn hat_ you _mother fucker!”_

 

An echoing giggle sounds through the area. Tucker lobs a stray chunk of debris into a calculated spot.  It, surprisingly, hits something.

 

“Owch!”

 

...

* * *

 ...

 

Danny is floating down the stairs wearing only his binder and a pair of Tucker’s sweat pants when he is accosted by a foot-tapping, hip-holding, stern-gaze-having Jazz.

 

“What.” The half-ghost says drolly, landing on his feet with nary a sound. “I have super senses. I could tell that mom and dad aren’t home – “

 

“That’s not it and you know it,” Jazz interrupts huffily, pointing one unwavering finger towards the living room T.V. “What is _that?”_

 

“Mmmm…” Danny hums in mock consideration, buying time and scratching his nearly bare chest with a sheepishly wandering gaze.  On the T.V is the only news station they ever watch. “The news.”

 

“Bull,” Jazz replies, her eyes flashing dangerously as he foot-tapping increases tenfold. “Are you _trying_ to get caught, Danny? Do you think this is a game?”

 

“No, jeez, god no!” Danny flails, reeling back and lightly floating away from his irate sister. “I just… It’s not that fun hiding so often, you know? Especially with my relationships… I just thought that maybe if Phantom, you know, Amity Park’s ‘golden hero’, showcased poly relationships first, then maybe it would be more readily accepted.”

 

Jazz, bless her binary heart, actually looks like she’s considering her little brother’s explanation. Her foot tamping decreases until it is nonexistent, her hands being removed from her hips in order to cross and tap at her chin in contemplation.

 

“I see.” Is all she says, body language making it known that she was going to roll the idea over in her mind for a while.

 

Sure enough, she slowly makes her way up the stairs, ideas already popping in and out of her head at a rapid-fire pace.

 

Danny stares after her, then shakes his head in the resignation familiar to dealing with the oldest Fenton sibling.

 

“I’ll kiss who I want and in whatever form I want,” the half-ghost grumbles as he throws himself moodily down onto the couch in front of the T.V.

 

His mood is lifted considerably when he gets a look at the screenshot currently being flashed all across Amity Park.

 

 _‘lol (kissy face) whos got two thumbs and is on the news right now’_ he texts to a group chat, causing it to erupt with other texts from Sam and Tucker. He leans back into the plush cushion, satisfied and preening like a cat that got the canary.

 

 _Mission accomplished_ he thinks smugly as the news flashes two side-by-side photos. One is of Sam being carried by Phantom, the other is of Tucker being smooched at an odd angle, most likely taken from a jittery teen’s cellphone.

 

Danny’s phone lights up with texts for at least three hours.

 

...

* * *

 ...

 

It was generally considered a fairly normal day in Amity Park when one’s football game was interrupted by a supernatural bonanza.

 

 _“Ugh!”_ Phantom grunts out as he crashes into the metal of the thick goal post, getting stuck in the grooves he creates from the hard hit.

 

The Red Huntress glides over on their technologic board, stopping in front of the cringing ghost-boy to cock their glowing pink gun at the ready.

 

“Any last words, ecto-scum?” The Red Hunter sibilates, beginning to point the loaded weaponry at the specter. The crowd absently munching on popcorn, still in their incredibly _open_ and _dangerously positioned_ seats in the bleachers, all gasp theatrically.

 

Phantom groans, his eyes peeling themselves open before they become wide with shock. “Green light!”

 

Before the Red Huntress can mentally dissect _that_ statement, Phantom bodily flings himself forward to tackle the flying human. They both yell as the technologic board spirals out of control, dodging the ecto-blast from the last attacking ghost with something akin to sheer luck.

 

In tandem, the two tangled self-proclaimed ghost hunter’s fire their arsenal, practically obliterating the previously offensive ghost with one big light show of mingling green and pinks.

 

The crowd, which would normally be roaring with cheer, is silent as they gaze apprehensively at the couple in the air, still munching popcorn or recording with whatever device they kept with them. Knowing Amity Park, everyone had at least one at the ready at all times.

 

The two pant some three-hundred feet in the air, arms gripping each other tightly with turbulent and unidentified emotions permeating the atmosphere around them.

 

The Red Hunter’s tinted visor slides open, their flying vehicle turning so that their face was no longer facing any crowd. They slowly and gently set Phantom down until he is balanced on the board.

 

“…Val,” Danny breathes out, toxic green eyes blinking owlishly. “What’s up?”

 

“'Green light'?” Valerie Gray finally chokes out, some hilarity in her admittedly watery hazel eyes. “Is that the best you could come up with?”

 

“Yea, well…” Danny scoffs, leaning back slightly. He notices the way Valerie’s tight grip doesn’t leave his body, so he doesn’t drop the hands clutching at her shoulders either. “It’s the best I could come up with.  You know, like red light green light? Except the light really _was_ green and ectoplasmic and could possibly hurt you – “

 

“Goddamn, shut up,” Valerie hisses out. It is the only warning the slightly confused Danny gets before their mouths are being forcefully crushed together, sparks literally flying as some of his energy fluctuates from the emotions.

 

The observing crowd below blinks away any surprise they could have developed within only a few seconds. Several even put away their phones.

 

“Um?” Tucker makes stilted noises of confusion. _“Um!?_ New development anybody?”

 

“Oh, my god,” Sam growls, her phone having been extracted from her hands by Tucker before she could snap it in two with strength alone. “That had _better_ be some shitty version of a fake-out-make-out.”

 

She is proven very, very wrong when Danny makes an _enthusiastic_ noise, Valerie grabbing fistfuls of his thigh meat in order to hike him easily up to her taller height so that they could continue their ferocious lip-locking.

 

A strange white light flashes temporarily at Phantom’s waist, causing the two canoodling youth to jump apart with a yelp. They both appear equally breathless, the ghost-boy apparently contemplating something serious as his expression goes through several emotions.

 

Finally, he leans forward and murmurs something in the Red Huntress’s ear, shooting off in some unknown direction with nary a look over his shoulder.

 

Valerie seems stunned as she slowly reaches up and slides her visor back into place, gaze riveted to the direction that Phantom had just disappeared off to.

 

Just as hastily, her foot shifts, kicking the board into high gear as she rockets off after Phantom.

 

“Call me!” Tucker yells while waving one hand. Sam growls something sounding suspiciously like ‘keep it in your damn pants.’

 

...

* * *

 ...

 

_Sent at 11:57 p.m._

_DAN: [photo of himself and Valerie in bed (fully clothed, mind you)]_

_DAN: guess whaaaat ;)_

_TUK: DANNY!_

_SAM: Explain. Now._

_DAN: so Valerie may or may not know that im phantom now lol_

_TUK: holy shit dude_

_SAM: What happened?_

_DAN: she punched me :(_

_DAN: but then she kissed me :)_

_DAN: so it’s all good_

_TUK: fuck yessss_

_SAM: Fuck no!_

_SAM: She literally tries to eviscerate you ever other day, Danny, did your hormone addled brain somehow conveniently forget this?_

_DAN: daw but sam_

_DAN: I know that val is listed as ‘hottie’ in your phone!_

_DAN: and we both know where tuk stands on this_

_TUK: damn right we do B)_

_…_

_DAN: plzzz_

_TUK: yea pleeeease_

_…_

_SAM: ugh fine_

_DAN: ! ! ! Yay_

_TUK: Does she have my number yet? Make sure you give her my number._

_DAN: lol yea k_

_TUK: Like, immediately. Please._

_SAM: *sigh*_

_SAM: since when did Team Phantom turn into Team DATING Phantom?_

_TUK: Well, Phantom IS Danny for one thing_

_DAN: B) collect_

_SAM: if you ever say that again I am locking you in the thermos until you regret Everything Ever_

_…_

_DAN: Yes Sir_

 

...

* * *

 ...

 

Dash walks purposefully up to the trio standing around at their lockers between classes, slapping his hand against the metal jarringly in order to get their attention. Also, it makes him look bigger, and he needs all the inches he can get on Manson. So he leans over the incredibly short Fenton.

 

“So I heard you guys were dating Phantom.” Dash opens with, gaining two smug looks and a shifty one from Fenton. He brushes it off; Fenton was always weird about the ghost topic. “How?”

 

“What do you mean ‘how’?” Manson intercedes whatever Foley was about to say brashly, crossing their arms and looking incredibly menacing even without leaning over someone shorter than themselves. It makes the blond junior insanely jealous.

 

“So: I want in.” Dash declares, eyebrows rising to paint the perfect picture of conceited and self-assured. “What did you do, dance naked in the moonlight until you captured him or something? Some other Pagan bullshit I should know about?”

 

Fenton sputters, his face turning an interesting color as he harshly bites his lips.

 

Dash narrows his eyes at the odd behavior. Fenton was Fenton. And this embarrassing mess was, unfortunately, Fenton.

 

“What’s up with you?” The quarterback questions the choking short junior, attention momentarily diverted from Manson and Foley. “Besides, aren’t you dating Phantom, too?”

 

“Um, no,” Foley cuts in, Manson similarly reacting in the negative. “Danny? Date Phantom? _Puh_ -lease.”

 

“Oh, so you’re _not_ dating Phantom?” Dash interrogates the rapidly paling Fenton. “So, it’s just two out of three? How’d that happen?”

 

Fenton mumbles something as his head slowly disappears into the convenient turtleneck he was wearing.

 

“By the way, why are you wearing Foley’s hat?” Dash once again asks, one finger coming up to flick the iconic red beret out of place.

 

Fenton flushes. “N-no reason,” before replacing the hat on its rightful owner’s head.  Foley looks particularly smug and excited at this.

 

“Whatever. So?” Dash inquires, his right hip tiring from leaning on the locker for so long.  Still, he couldn’t back down now. He has to see this to the end.

 

Fenton looks incredibly conflicted, interrupting whatever Sam was about to say with a mumbled “I could do it…”

 

“M’sorry, what?” Dash questions crassly. Get to the point, dammit!

 

“I said, I could do it!” Fenton suddenly shouts, looking steamed about something. “I could date Phantom too!”

 

“Um, no you can’t,” Manson replies confidently, earning a nod from Foley.

 

 _“Yes I could!”_ Fenton yells once more, gaining a few odd looks from the other juniors and seniors loitering around. “In fact, Im’a do it _right now!”_

 

With that harrowing statement, Fenton books it down the hallway, maneuvering between the crowd like an Assassin’s Creed character. That is to say, he shoves people aside and makes a bunch of unnecessary movements like an emotional jerk.

 

The three left behind pause, incredulity breeding in the air.

 

“He’s not serious, is he?” Dash finally says, looking to the two of the three in the school-famous ‘weird trio’ with unbelieving eyes.

 

“God I hope not.” Is all Manson says, shutting her locker with force that, once again, makes Dash prickle with green. Foley only stifles a bout of hilarity, following after his friend with rolling eyes.

 

...

* * *

 ...

 

“I think you two ought’a get in here _fast.”_ Valerie intones from the front room of the Fenton’s house with a dubious in not resigned look, leading the two down to the lab with steady feet and breath.

 

Sam and Tucker hurriedly follow their fourth (and hopefully final) partner down the steps with a frightened look shared between them, thoughts of the horribly ill-thought-out actions Danny could have taken after he ran out of the school in a tizzy earlier running through their heads.

 

When they get down to the lab, it is to see Danny lining himself up to do an impressive running jump and flip into the Fenton Ghost Catcher.

 

“Danny, _no!”_ Sam shouts, one arm being thrown out as if she could physically stop him.

 

“Danny, _yes!”_ Danny shouts back unhelpfully as his body makes contact with the glowing green webbing. Within seconds, out pops a second body along with the first.

 

Phantom expertly catches his human counterpart from smacking into the floor, twirling into the air with his fleshy cargo.

 

“Awesome!” Danny crows, grabbing the sides of Phantom’s face and crushing their mouths together without preamble.

 

Phantom makes a noise of surprise, but is generally amiable to the snogging. Still, his throaty ‘hero’ voice comes forth between rapid-fire kisses.

 

“I propose” _smooch_ “that we” _smooch_ “fuse” _smooch_ “together.”

 

“Wow. My thoughts exactly!” Danny breathes out, once again wrapping his body around his ghostly counterpart’s. His long curly hair gets caught in the static of Phantom’s ethereal white locks, causing them to look like an abstract painting.

 

“Oh, my god…” Sam groans out, sitting down heavily on a nearby stool. Tucker takes pictures with his phone, one arm capturing a reluctant Valerie’s in a laughing grab.

 

“Danny? What’s going on down there?” An innocent, unknowing Jazz calls from the top of the lab steps, already making her way down. “Danny, I thought over what you said, and I guess I agr – _Oh no.”_

 

“Hi Jazz!” Danny waves from his perch on Phantom’s strong arms. Phantom looks, for all in the world, uncaring and neutral of their current predicament. “Look, look – they said that I couldn’t date Phantom. But here I am! _Dating Phantom!”_

 

“I – but – I – you – _what!?”_ Jazz stumbles, her eyes stuck to the visage of her younger brother making out… with her younger brother!? _“Danny!_ Oh, my god…”

 

“Join the club,” Sam drawls from their slumped position on the stool. There is Death in their eyes. “He’ll tire himself out soon enough.”

 

“Yea, don’t worry,” Tucker pipes up, never ceasing taking pictures and videos, presumably for blackmail later. That and a lesson of ‘do you see what we _don’t do_ when we’re jealous?’ “We won’t let what happened last time happen again.”

 

Valerie looks stricken. “What happened _last_ time?”

 

Sam, Jazz, and Tucker share a Look.

 

“Kids?” The _parents_ call from their still uninformed position on the upper floor. “What are you all doing in the lab?”

 

“Crap.”

 

“Danny, stop mackin’ on yourself!”

 

“Mmmm… Nope!”

 

“I do decree to decline your declaration.”

 

The entirety of Amity Park rolls its eyes for reasons unseen.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Just a bunch of kids punching ghosts, breaking societal rules, and falling in love with each other.


End file.
